THE HEART OF DARKNESS
Prologue:
Becoming a man
What has gone on before:
Forces in the Easterling nations, weary of the diplomatic solutions to solve their crisis of impending famine, chose a military alternative and issues a declaration of war against the Reunified Kingdom and all its allies. As Gondor, Rohan and Ithilien rally its forces and protect the eastern boundaries, Aragorn asks that Eden Ardhon maintain a neutral position in light of its vulnerable position near the Haradrim border.
Following the declaration of war, the combined armies of the Easterlings and Haradrim, called the Easterling Confederacy, led by a mysterious leader, have recruited allies across Middle earth to assail Gondor and Rohan from all sides. A pre-emptive strike is inflicted upon the village of Lebethron, where the entire population is murdered as a warning to Eden Ardhon, the elven colony in South Ithilien to not interfere in the conflict.
With the Confederacy dividing its forces to confuse the enemy, Lossarnach, the ancient fiefdom of Gondor comes under assault with only a handful of defenders. As word is sent to Ithilien where the Gondorian armies along with the Rohirrim Cavalry are gathered, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli and a handful of elves successfully prevent the fall of the city which would have been an important foothold for the Confederacy if it had succeeded. However, the involvement of the elves result in orders issued to strike at Eden Ardhon.
Meanwhile rogue Dunlending tribes assault Edoras while the bulk of the Rohirrim is at Ithilien and the remaining forces protecting the city are lured away by the goblins of Moria. Disaster is averted when Lothiriel discovers a Dunlending scouting party and returns to Edoras to raise the alarm. Edoras is saved by the return of the Rohirrim cavalry led by Eomer, the King of the Mark but not before Lothiriel is forced to use her magic to kill.
An intercepted courier reveals to Legolas Greenleaf the impending danger to Eden Ardhon in retribution of his involvement in the defense of Lossarnach. Legolas returns home in the wake of significant damage to Eden Ardhon and the surrounding wood as well as the heinous violation of many of its women, including his own wife Melia. Enraged, he returns home to Mirkwood and convinces his father that the elves must join the conflict if they choose to remain in Middle earth.
With the allies of the Reunified Kingdom, nursing wounds from multiple attacks, the Easterlings and the Haradrim finally launch their biggest assault upon the fortifications of Ithilien, where Eowyn, the White Lady is forced to take part in the battle against overwhelming odds. The arrival of Legolas and the elven army of Eryn Lasgalen and Lorien save Ithilien. Faramir returns home to Ithilien and learns that Eowyn was injured during the battle and that he is going to be a father. In Edoras, Eomer marries Lothiriel of Dol Amroth before he leaves Edoras to attend a council of war in Ithilien, where it is decided that the armies of the Reunified Kingdom will retaliate by launching an offense against the territories of the enemy.
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On this day, the boy had become a man.
If his father were alive to see it, it would have been an event of joyous celebration. These were the moments that fathers and sons shared best; it defined their relationship for the rest of their lives and continued when the son became the father to a new generation. His father had been an anomaly who had not wished for this occasion as much as others in his village. If he were older, he would have understood that as his father's only child, the man was not eager to see the boy grow to manhood as other men might have been with a household of sons. For his father, the boy was all that was left of a dead wife and he was in no eagerness to see his son grow to adulthood and leave him behind when his life took the boy upon a different road.
The boy who was called Damin knew little of this except that he had been loved and perhaps had been raised with a gentler hand than rightly traditional for his people. While other boys learned to fight, he had dreamed of the far away places and travelling the world to fill his senses with wonder and discovery. His father told him of days when the world was not so hard, when there was no famine, when the dry, arid heat of their lands was a place of beauty not so ravaged by the wars of gods and creatures beyond their ken. He longed to see these places. Sometimes, he would sit upon the edge of their village and stare into the vastness, knowing that there was more than just sand and heat waiting over each dune.
His father had seen the lands beyond their village for he had walked across the desert with many others, some like Sola's father who had returned home and others like Marayan's, who had not. He had many friends whose fathers had left their village and returned home and others who never came back at all becoming lost in those distant lands. Their deaths were grieved but their passing an honor, for the village elders often spoke that it was necessary to defend one's home, to take arms and protect it at all costs, even when the cause did not seem right or just. To guard against the enemy was to hurt him first, to show him that they were strong and fearsome, worthy of respect and therefore caution.
Damin learn this in school with other boys his age, absorbing it with as much understanding but tempered with his father's wisdom who often countered that while it was necessary to fight, it was also sometimes necessary to yield, to sue for peace and survive. His father had been a contradiction, a man who believed in peace and yet forged weapons for a living. He made the finest weapons of war and Damin was proud to see great warriors from all across the land come in search of his unique blades. Damin himself was too small to handle any of his father's wares and in truth, his father was not eager for him to know the weapon. It was a source of some irritation because other boys were already rewarded with their own and he was not.
However, he had his dreams and his secret plans of far away adventure, where beasts greater than the mumakils lived. Great serpents breathing flame that flew in the air leveling whole villages and eagles who wings could carry a man across the sky, did battle with them. In secret, his father spoke of races older than man, of such profound beauty that to gaze upon them was akin at looking into the sky and seeing Varda's starlight embodied in flesh. He wondered about these folk who did not die, who were luminous in their hearts and in their knowledge, who had been alive longer than man.
The great lord who ruled over them was one of such folk, fair and beautiful. He lived in his tower far away from their own lands, in a place of his own, surrounded by wall of mountains that spewed ash and flame to keep away the enemies. Their lord ensured that they would never fall under the dominion of anyone. Since he was born, Damin heard the tales of the lord's envoys who came and took away their best warriors to protect their lands; some as recent as three seasons ago when a good deal had gone across the desert. Damin had watched them go, amidst the weeping of women, who never understood the importance of such duty, wearing their mail and carrying their curved blades, ready to fight in a great conflict whose outcome everyone feared.
It was the conflict that preceded the Great Hunger.
They did not come back, most of them and those who did, seemed sad as if the honor that was promised to them when they marched was no more. They returned home and suddenly there no longer seemed to exist enough food. Their return proceeded a spell of heat where no rain came and what meager crops they had failed, withered away in dust and thirst. The tributes and gifts of grain from their great lord no longer came and for the first time in his life, Damin knew what it was to feel a hunger so intense, it gnawed at one's inside and drove away dreams of adventures into forgetfulness.
His father no longer made swords and what he had, he could not sell at their proper price. He went away with some of the other fathers and they returned many weeks later with bags of seed and tools for farming. Water became precious and none of it could be wasted as village began planting. Their water was rationed because they needed to irrigate crops and though it was hard for their lands was never good for such an occupation, small buds were coaxed through difficult soil in the spring. When it came time to reap the benefits of what they had sown, the harvest had been a small one but enough for them to stave off the effects of the famine.
Then he came and it all changed again.
He came from the south, with skin as black as jet and he wore the cloak of an animal skin and when he journeyed with a small army, Damin thought that their lord had finally come to deliver them from their hunger, that their burden was over. However, the lord was not a lord, he was a king and a warrior king at that. He brought no tribute but instead, spoke of breaking the cycle of hunger by going forth one last time to the lands beyond the dunes, to take back what they had lost. He spoke of honor and glory with such eloquence that Damin was moved. When he left, many had gone with him and his small army had become a much larger one.
His father had remained behind and more strangely had not made swords for the departing army. The warrior king had told him he was a fool and Damin could not understand why his father would be rebuked for not wanting to fight. There were tears of sorrow in his father's eyes when he saw them march away and the women wept again. Damin wondered why there should be such sadness when the warrior king had promised the fruits of this departure would be the end to the famine and all would have food in their bellies for the coming months, perhaps for all time.
And like the others, only a few had come back
But this time, there was no sadness or defeat in their eyes when they returned. Damin saw something he had never seen before. He saw their fear and it spread across the village like a brush fire. Damin had tried to ask his father why were people fleeing for the hills, why the return of the soldiers had caused such anxiety. His father did not answer but spoke that there were races beyond their lands and while they could be cruel, they could also be kind also and his father did not think they would be cruel.
"They are the First Born," his father had explained.
"Are we going to see them father?" He had asked.
His father nodded grimly and replied, "yes."
Half the village fled, terrified of some coming evil. Many remained including his father who did not believe the stories that was spoken about in hushed whispers, stories the children were not supposed to hear but his father began making swords again. This time, these were not for warriors on the way across the desert but for people Damin saw everyday, the shepherd, the baker, the farmer and the merchants. Even the warriors who returned home were now preparing for the coming storm of which none of the elders would speak but whose presence was overwhelming because of their fear.
Damin understood why when he was awoken one night by the thundering of hooves against the dirt. He woke from his bed and ran to the window, hearing a growing cacophony of sound as the rest of village made the same discovery. He peered out of the window and saw the signal fires throughout the town coming to life. Bright tongues of amber gave illumination to the invaders, their hair gleaming in the light as they rode through the village astride horses with no saddles. Damin had seen horses before but never in so many number and he had never seen them ridden like this. They did not possess the formidability of the mumakils but they able to move into narrow streets and they crossed the village faster.
The screams began soon after the first arrow flew from the riders on horseback.
They flew fast and accurate, striking the villagers whom had emerged from their homes to defend themselves. Women and children were ordered to remain in their homes as the men went to fight. From his window, Damin saw them, the invaders, their gleaming mail, their elegant swords, and their swift and sure arrows. He saw the fathers of his friends falling, struck down by the riders who cut them to ribbons and spared no one man, not even those who in the face of danger had dropped their sword and fled. They were struck down ruthlessly, a savage death delivered by a not so savage enemy.
He saw them climb off their horses when it was time to sweep the village and eradicate the last remaining bit of resistance. Long, golden hair that captured the light as they moved and they moved like nothing Damin had ever seen. Graceful like birds in the sky, their armors gleaming like a thing of beauty against their bodies. It was easy to be mesmerized even when they raised their swords to kill. He watched and knew at last that these were the folk his father had spoke of for so long, the fair and beautiful folk from across the desert. The ones who did not know death and yet had little difficulty dispensing it this night.
He watched them sweep into houses, entering them amidst screams and emerging from them after those same cries had ended abruptly, their blades dripping with blood, droplets following them across the dirt. They killed only the men and that realization was slow to dawn upon Damin in the face of the carnage he was bearing witness to. It was only when he saw his father at the door of his room, ordering him under the bed, did he realize the danger.
"I do not want to hide," he protested, staring at his father who was holding a sword in one hand. In all his life, Damin had never seen his father wield a sword even though he was a weapon smith. The curved scimitar in his hand was old and not the same as those his father sold to others. Without hearing him say it, Damin knew that this was his father's sword, the one he carried with him when he had crossed the desert in his youth.
"You have to hide," his father had said before embracing him and there was a finality to the act that brought tears immediately to Damin's face. "You will not emerge until I come for you," he added but Damin looked into his eyes and knew he was lying.
His father left him huddled beneath the frame of his bed before running out once more. Damin's head was pressed to the ground and he heard the door swing open followed by the clanging of swords. However, it was a sharp cry that made him forget all about his father's warning. He hurried out and paused at the sight of what greeted him. The tall man, with the long golden hair stood there meeting his gaze, his blade wet with blood while at his feet Damin's father lay dead, his blood creating a crimson pool beneath him. The golden warrior stared at Damin for a moment, his blue eyes taking in the sight of him before his brow furrowed into an unfathomable expression that Damin would have recognized as guilt had he been older.
"I am sorry little one," he whispered.
Damin had said nothing and lowered to his knees, his small hands brushing his father's cheek. He was unaware that the tears running down his face was a far sharper blade against the warrior who had taken his father's life than any that could break skin. The golden warrior turned away, unable to look upon what he had wrought and it was only then that Damin's hands found the hilt of his father's sword. A burst of rage and grief forced the child, who would turn nine on his next birthday, to take up the blade and lunge at the warrior retreating through the door.
The enemy swung, sensing the danger with a keen sight that Damin did not think was real and reacted accordingly as any soldier confronted by a sudden attack would do. His blade sliced through Damin's heart, cleaving it in two even before he realized what he had one. As Damin's life drained away in seconds, he saw the face of his killer, one of the fair folk and what his father used to call an elf, twist in agony, an expression of profound horror following him into the darkness of death.
As death claimed Damin of Axinar, who held a sword in his hand when he fell, his last thought was that on this day, the boy had become a man.
His father would have been proud.
PART ONE
PART TWO
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